Educators: Sharpen your STEAM skills

Educators: Sharpen your STEAM skills

Professional learning opportunities open for STEAM educators

Stay tuned for details, but here’s an early alert: The Umpqua Valley STEAM Hub, together with the Douglas Education Service District and several other partners, is bringing together resources to offer several professional learning opportunities in 2016-17.

Most offerings are open to both in-school and community-based educators. All events will be part of creating communities of practice for ongoing connections and learning. Watch this newsletter, our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UVRSH/ and website www.dcpss.org for more information about STEAM professional learning in the Umpqua Valley.

Mentoring Skills for Building Strong Youth Relationships: June 21 and 22 at the Community Cancer Center. The presenter will be Sarah Tollefson from the Institute for Youth Success. Contact Lacey Ferguson at lferguson@healthyoregon.com to register. This is a partnership with Area Health Education Center of Southwest Oregon. There will be no cost for this workshop.

Outdoor Education Workshop: Aug. 17 and 18 at Alder Creek Community Forest near Canyonville. For more information, go to http://aldercreek.org/our-place-on-earth/. Partners include Alder Creek Community Forest, Douglas ESD, OSU Institute for Natural Resources and UVSH. Funding for the workshop comes from the Gray Family Foundation.

Computer Science SuperQuest 2016: Seven three-day workshops, free to community and in-school educators, are being held this summer across the state. (Aug. 3-5 in Eugene and Aug. 16-18 in Grants Pass are two options; visit www.oregoncsta.org to see more options and for details.) There will be a variety of lunchtime speakers from education, industry and the state of Oregon. Complimentary breakfast and lunch are provided. Teachers will earn PDUs documented upon completion of the event survey. Stipends may be available for attendees who are Oregon teachers licensed for grades 7 through 12 who participe in a virtual PLC over the school year and who attend SuperQuest 2017. This event is organized by The the Oregon Computer Science Teachers Association.

FTC Robotics: August, dates and location TBD. Southern Oregon Area Robotics training for coaches and team volunteers to prepare for upcoming season.

Vernier Software and Technology: Multiple dates and various locations. Resources are available to help teachers become leaders and support their peers in the use of Vernier software and tools. For details, contact Umpquavalleysteamhub@gmail.com. Several tools including LabQuest2 and mini-LabQuests. Probes for water quality and other environmental projects, engineering and physiology explorations are available for checkout. UVSH will support registration costs.

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Introduction workshops and application to Project-Based Learning (PBL) will be offered throughout next year. Stayed tuned for announcement of dates and details! These workshops are supported by grant funding through UVSH.

Many more opportunities are in the works, so watch for more information to be coming your way. If you haven’t already “liked” our Facebook page, go to https://www.facebook.com/UVRSH/. Other updates will be found at www.dcpss.org.